"This is the irrational season, when love blooms bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason, there'd have been no room for the child." Madeline L'engle

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apocalypse always

Papyrus is expensive. I smooth my hand over it. Greek, too, in its own way is expensive. A language which takes my mind in difficult directions, where I need to concentrate to get the full natural value from the words. Though these days I dream in Greek.

I take up the pen, dip it in the ink. I sigh. It is so clear in my mind. I see circle after circle, each holier, more perfect than the next. Daily life, the Temple, the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. Then, far and far beyond them, Jesus himself. I see him offer himself. How magnificent is it to do that? To take your very life, for that is what blood is, and to pour it away for others. To do it once, and to do it always. Nothing is holy beside that.

And all I have to offer to get the enormity of this across to people is papyrus and ink. I am translating. Hebrew into Greek. One culture to others. I am trying to draw people up, on. I see them stop, willing to be children in faith, never growing, never learning. They fail to see the enormity of what is done for them. They fail to see the life, the very life dashed out willingly, openly, once and always.

Really I do not know if I can ever get that across to them. And all I have is pen and paper. I sigh again. The ink on the pen is dry. I dip it again. I write: ‘When Christ came into the world…’